Organizers in labor, immigrant rights, and climate movements seeking to spark far-reaching work stoppages in the United States can invoke a powerful fact: It has happened before.
Thirty-five years ago, Central American solidarity activists developed a model for building resistance before disaster strikes. Their efforts may have stopped a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.
If there is a vision of U.S. patriotism that is redeemable, it must surely draw on Seeger's insistence that it encompass both ardent dissent and robust internationalism.
Jeremy Brecher, author of the labor-history classic Strike!, considers the recent wave of teacher walkouts, how we can overcome America's "strike drought," and the future role of mass disobedience in democratic politics.
In cities such as New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, working people have been all but priced out, pushed into ever more distant fringes and suburbs.